Rochelle is an Assistant Professor of Peace and Social Justice Studies in Berea College, the first co-ed and racially integrated college in the southern United States. She is a Panamanian-American scholar, mediator, and restorative justice practitioner. Her research focuses on critical reflective practice, restorative justice, action research, and epistemologies of conflict practitioners. Prior to academia, she served as Restorative Justice Coordinator of New York Peace Institute where she managed mediation and restorative justice initiatives with the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, Juvenile Justice Courts, schools, and community agencies in Brooklyn and Manhattan. She has trained or coached hundreds of individuals in communication skills, mediation and other facilitative interventions. Since 2000, she has worked in the U.S. and abroad in collaborative processes and restorative justice projects, with a variety of groups, including civil society organizations in India, indigenous peoples in Argentina, immigrants and refugees, and homicide offenders and victim survivors in Kentucky. She convened the Restorative Roots Collaborative, a participatory action research group where practitioners from underrepresented communities in the U.S. and Latin America work in co-inquiry to investigate challenges in their practices. Rochelle also authored a chapter in Colorizing Restorative Justice and has organized initiatives to underscore the experiences of BIPOC practitioners facing the harmful legacies of settler-colonial attitudes and white supremacy within the field. Since transitioning out of New York City with her husband, daughter, and mother, she has enjoyed building and rekindling community in Kentucky, her first U.S. home.